I can see it now

Here it comes: the inevitable complaint that the New York Times is biased against Rudy Guiliani. The conservative hacks love to hack away at the venerable Paper Of Record, claiming it to be the mouthpice of the liberal elite--never mind the fact that the Times, like most big New York businesses, is totally dependant upon the most conservative institution of the American economy, the New York Stock Exchange and is, in many ways, quite conservative itself in an old school, high brow sort of way. Never mind as well that the New York Sun is totally biased in favor of Mr. Guiliani but doesn't seem to arrouse near as much anger. Although Fred Thompson did recently complain that Rupert Murdoch is trying to damage his campaign (bull. Fox Network News was once treating Thompson as the presumptive nominee).

This morning the Times ran a front page piece about Guiliani's habit of citing false statistics, taking credit for the accomplishments of others, and--most clearly--citing statistics that are either misleading or flat-out wrong. For too long in the national media the former mayor has been getting a free pass. It's good to see people waking up.

We New Yorkers know. We know that there has never been a more divisive mayor in New York history--not even in the days of Tamany Hall. We know that this mayor was not only insensitve to the plights of poor New Yorkers but that he was a bully. We know that he was more harmful to race relations than the Crown Heights Riots. We know that he lost more than a dozen federal 1st ammendment cases in whcih he tried to silence either silence his critics, stifle legal speech, or ban what he considered to be degenerate art. We know that crime was already going down by the time he bacame mayor. We know that the rest of the contry experienced the same drop in violent crime and booming economy that he now takes credit for. We know that he is an aggressive war monger who has no credentials to run this country other than the fact that he lead this city in a time of grief. We know that his administration was an unmitigated disaster until it was rescued by 9-11. Most of all, we know that he is a liar.

And now, finally, the Times is calling him on it. God! I hope the rest of the country listens.